Jack White, seen here at Coachella in 2015, will co-headline the 2018 Arroyo Seco Weekend on Saturday, June 23. (Photo by David Brendan Hall, contributing photographer)

Jessie Bobbe, 23, of Winchester, left, and Alex Lower, 24, of Cincinnati, kill time before Jade Jackson perform at The Oaks stage during Arroyo Seco Weekend at Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena, Calif. on Saturday, June 24, 2017. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

Los Lobos, seen here at the Greek Theatre in May 2014, is on the bill for the Arroyo Seco Weekend, June 23-24, 2018. (Photo by Kelly A. Swift, contributing photographer)

Kings of Leon, seen here at KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas in 2016, will co-headline Arroyo Seco Weekend on Sunday, June 24, 2018. (Photo by Kelly A. Swift, contributing photographer)

Festival goers seek shelter in the shade during Arroyo Seco Weekend at Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena, Calif. on Sunday, June 25, 2017. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Aaron Alferos and Susie Luong dance to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band during the Arroyo Seco Weekend festival on Saturday, June 24, 2017 in Pasadena. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Kamasi Washington, seen here at Coachella in 2016, is on the bill for Arroyo Seco Weekend, June 23-24, 2018. (Photo by David Brendan Hall, contributing photographer)

Robert Plant & the Sensational Space Shifters, seen here at the Hollywood Palladium in October 2014, will co-headline Arroyo Seco Weekend on Sunday, June 24, 2018. (Photo by Kelly A. Swift, contributing photographer)

Howard Mordoh, 66, of Woodland Hills, dances to Baskery at the Sycamore stage during Arroyo Seco Weekend at Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena, Calif. on Saturday, June 24, 2017. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Gary Clark Jr., seen here in Newport Beach in February 2017, is on the bill for Arroyo Seco Weekend, June 23-24, 2018. Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Belle and Sebastian, seen here at Coachella in 2015, is on the bill for Arroyo Seco Weekend, June 23-24, 2018. (Photo by David Brendan Hall, contributing photographer)

Music fans pick out flowers from Muir Ranch flowers during Arroyo Seco Weekend at Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena, Calif. on Sunday, June 25, 2017. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

The rest of the lineup contains the same mix of new and old, local and far-flung acts that made the first Arroyo Seco festival such fun, including such bands as the English indie pop band Belle and Sebastian, blues guitarist-singer Gary Clark Jr., Los Angeles jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington, East L.A. legends Los Lobos, country singer-songwriter Margo Price, and Brazilian guitarist Seu Jorge. And Jeff Goldblum and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra will make another appearance after last year’s well-received performance that was part jazz set, part Jeff Goldblum trivia hour and all memorable.

And then there is a host of much-loved acts that reach back two or three decades and are sure to hit the nostalgic sweet spot for many music fans, a list that includes such acts as the Bangles, Alanis Morissette, Pretenders, the Specials, Third Eye Blind, the Violent Femmes, and Prince’s best backing band, the Revolution.

Arroyo Seco founder Nic Adler said earlier this week he’s glad to get the lineup announced partly so that friends and family stop bugging him about whether he signed Jack White to play. After White earlier this year announced dates for his first major tour since 2015 but didn’t have anything listed closer than San Diego or Las Vegas, people started to speculate, he said.

“There was some relief,” Adler said of getting the first festival behind him. “And then tremendous, not pressure, but definitely an interesting feeling.”

Going into the first year, he and the festival planners had to imagine how everything would work, whether that was walking from your car to the grounds, or flowing from stage to stage once you were in.

“Definitely understanding the space better helped us confront some of the challenges we had last year,” he said.

Moving to and from the Oaks, the main stage on the festival field, was gridlock at times in 2017, especially in the evening as crowds grabbed spots for the final sets of the night, and while temporary fixes were attempted during the weekend, this year Adler says he hopes the layout changes will make that much more comfortable.

“It will feel somewhat like a a new festival because we have changed some of the stages and where they are,” he said. “People will feel a little more elbow room, a little more easy to walk around. I don’t think we realized how to use the site properly so that we were taking advantage of all the space we had last year.”

Other changes have been put in place for the VIP areas, which now will allow fans inside their boundaries to flow back and forth from the Oaks to the Sycamore stage without leaving VIP, though to get closest to the stages you’d still need to join the GA folks.

Tollett booked the bands with the same goal as last year, Adler said.

“We just felt last year that the music really connected with the people who were there, that it was very multi-generational,” he said. “I was with my dad watching my brother on stage while my son was running around. I think that’s where we want to land in this festival. My dad at 84 is totally enjoying himself while my kid is running around on the grass.”

Arroyo Seco also featured food and drink, art, and a sense of community that pays tribute to Pasadena, its host city, and all of those things will be back again this year whether it’s the Little Libraries offering books for music fans to browse, art installations perfect for Instagram or Snapchat, or the outreach programs that connected with a few hundred high school students for panels on the music business or a chance to job shadow festival workers.

“We’re just going to put out these opportunities and if people take advantage of them that’s going to add to their experience,” Adler said.

Peter Larsen has been the Pop Culture Reporter for the Orange County Register since 2004, finally achieving the neat trick of getting paid to report and write about the stuff he's obsessed about pretty much all his life. He regularly covers the Oscars and the Emmys, goes to Comic-Con and Coachella, reviews pop music, and conducts interviews with authors and actors, musicians and directors, a little of this and a whole lot of that. He grew up, in order, in California, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oregon. Graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. with degrees in English and Communications. Earned a master's degree at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Earned his first newspaper paycheck at the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, fled the Midwest for Los Angeles Daily News and finally ended up at the Orange County Register. He's taught one or two classes a semester in the journalism and mass communications department at Cal State Long Beach since 2006. Somehow managed to get a lovely lady to marry him, and with her have two daughters. And a dog named Buddy. Never forget the dog.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.